


leave a note (won't be gone long)

by tamerofdarkstars



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Borderlands: Borderlands 2, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Sacrifice, Team as Family, Trope Bingo Round 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 16:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13528452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamerofdarkstars/pseuds/tamerofdarkstars
Summary: Because Axton knew exactly what he was. He was a soldier. He was the only member of this ragtag group that could be plucked out of any unit anywhere in the galaxy. Look at half the private armies of any of the corporations ravaging this planet and there were dozens of guys just like Axton.





	leave a note (won't be gone long)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Trope Bingo Round 10. Square: Rare Pair
> 
> I'm one boss fight away from beating BL2 so get excited, gang, because here comes a whole mess of fic. Or something.

There were too many bots, even with all six of them there. Which was saying something, because they’re pretty damn good at what they do.

Axton crouched behind a pillar as his beauty popped off shot after shot into the fray, mind racing. All around him, his teammates were fighting with everything they had. They’d been surprised and surprised badly and the fight was not going their way, the tide slowly but steadily turning in favor of Hyperion’s robotic army. Axton chewed his lower lip, trying to come up with something. They wouldn’t last long at this rate and he wasn’t sure how much longer they had before one of them got just a little slower, a little clumsier with exhaustion, and stepped in front of a laser blast.

He licked his lips and peeked around the pillar just in time to see Krieg take a running leap off a nearby ledge, howling as he landed on top of a Loader Bot and drove his buzz saw down into its head. The Bot squealed and exploded in a burst of flames and sharp little bits of metal, and Axton ducked as pieces went scattering everywhere.

He jerked his SMG up and popped off a burst of rounds into the nearest batch of Bots. A Constructor had landed heavily on the other side of the battlefield and he could see Gaige crouched down behind some smoldering wreckage, firing corrosive rounds into its eye as Deathtrap tore robots to shreds behind her.

Damn it, there had to be _something_ they could do. Every time a Bot went down, two more crashed down in their place, rising up out of the craters like disjointed jerking monsters.

Axton scanned and scanned the chaos, looking for something, _anything_ , please—

Then he saw it. And he realized, as something cold settled into his blood, that he could do it, sure, but there was a very high chance that he wasn’t walking away again.

_But if it saves them…_

Axton was standing, recalling his turret before he even realized he was moving.

Because Axton knew exactly what he was. He was a soldier. He was the only member of this ragtag group that could be plucked out of any unit anywhere in the galaxy. Look at half the private armies of any of the corporations ravaging this planet and there were dozens of guys just like Axton.

He was expendable. Gaige, Maya, Salvador, Zer0, Krieg… they were the heroes. The people with the skills and the swanky outfits. He was just Axton. A former disgrace and a deserter marked for death. And if this was the moment that he needed to die so that they might live, well, he’d always known it was right around the corner, hadn’t he?

Axton sucked in a breath and dragged a hand down his face. Then he straightened his shoulders, raised his gun, and darted out from behind the pillar, yelling at the top of his lungs and charging into the battle.

+++

Maya slapped him hard in the face. Axton jerked upwards, spluttering, not entirely sure where he was.

There was a beat, maybe two, before all the pain rushed in at once. He groaned and doubled over, clutching at his middle. Holy hell, everything _hurt_. What had happened?

“Holy shit,” he heard Gaige choke from somewhere in front of him.

“Watch your fucking language,” he croaked at his knees, the joke the first thing out of his mouth on impulse. The next thing he knew there was a pair of skinny teenage arms slung around his neck and Gaige was squeezing him so tightly he could barely breathe.

“You are a gaping asshole,” Gaige said wetly into his shoulder.

Axton realized he was sitting on the ground and the gunfire had stopped. His friends were grouped around him in a tight circle, and they all looked a strange combination of furious and horrified.

He put numb arms around Gaige and hugged her back, blinking at Maya, who was examining him with unnerving intensity. Krieg paced behind her, fiddling with the end of his buzz saw and muttering to himself, shooting Axton scowling looks every ten seconds. Zer0 crouched next to Maya, his mask a blank canvas, and Salvador--

Salvador was staring at him with a look on his face Axton couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t his usual anger, not quite, but there was definitely anger there. A lot of it. Anger and something else, just below the surface.

It almost looked like… fear? But that couldn’t be right. Axton didn’t think Salvador was afraid of anything.

“What—” Axton began, but it was Zer0 who cut him off.

“You are such a tool, / thinking we didn’t notice. / You were almost killed.”

“Hey, now…” Axton tried to shift on the hard-packed dirt, but Gaige made an angry noise and clung tighter. Axton wheezed and tried to subtly pull her arm away from his neck a little so he could breathe.

“Yes, it worked,” Maya said quietly and he looked at her. “But if you ever think you’re doing something that brainlessly idiotic again, I’ll phase you into space.”

Axton swallowed. She sounded coldly furious with him and he didn’t doubt for a second that she had the power to send him flying into the sun with her mind. “Noted.”

“After she does that, / I will do something far less / pleasant, you moron.”

There was a pause as Axton stared at them both. Then both Maya and Zer0 relaxed, their shoulders slumping in unison. Zer0’s mask flashed a heart, and then Axton must have blinked or something because suddenly the assassin was behind him, squeezing him tightly in what Axton was pretty sure was supposed to be a hug but felt more like a choke hold. He patted Zer0’s hand anyway as Maya leaned forward and kissed him softly on the forehead.

“We would miss you, idiot,” she whispered into his ear so only he could hear. “Despite what you may think, you are not replaceable.”

Axton felt something inside him crumple. “I’m… sorry,” he muttered. Shame, hot and sticky and unwelcome, washed over him then, and he felt like the world’s biggest jackass.

Gaige pulled back, finally, and Axton was horrified to see that her eyes were red.

“I’m gonna kick your stupid ass,” she said thickly and Axton reached for her helplessly, smoothing her hair back from her sweaty forehead.

“I totally deserve it,” he said, as earnestly as he could, just to see the smile crack across her face. She punched him in the shoulder, but there was no force behind it.

“Alright, he’s fine. Let’s go. We gotta get outta here.”

Axton looked up at Salvador, who had moved to stand a bit apart from them now, his thick arms folded across his chest.

He wasn’t looking at Axton, instead surveying the wreckage of the battle strewn around them, and Axton… well, he had to admit that it stung, just a little bit.

Couldn’t let it show, though.

“Sal’s right,” Axton said, pushing himself to his feet with a wince. Damn it, he was going to be sore for weeks. “We made a lot of noise. We can’t stay here.”

He looked at Maya for confirmation – permission to move out, Captain? – and she nodded. “Can you walk?”

“He can ride Deathtrap!” Gaige offered brightly and Axton blanched.

“Uh, no, I’m good, I can manage.”

He was fine, he could walk with a few broken ribs. They were probably just cracked anyway. Probably.

He chanced another quick glance at Salvador and just managed to catch his eye before his friend snapped his gaze away, a scowl heavy on his face.

Axton frowned, just a little. “Sal?” he asked quietly, but Salvador just grunted at him and marched away to go walk with Zer0.

Axton watched him go, then sighed and focused on putting one foot in front of the other as they moved out, a little bit more bedraggled than when they’d arrived.

Well, there went that little secret flutter of hope that had been quietly growing somewhere behind his breastbone. He’d known anyway that his developing crush on their gun-toting teammate was wildly idiotic in the first place. Hell, Axton probably had a better chance with Zer0 than he did with Salvador. And Axton was pretty sure that Zer0 wasn’t even into that kind of thing.

Here was some pretty solid evidence that Axton should just smother that flame dead, shoving it into the same little box in the corner of his heart that he’d shoved everything else and lock it up tight.

“I’m an idiot,” Axton mumbled to himself and was nearly scared half to death when Krieg, who’d apparently been walking silently a few steps behind him, slapped him hard on the back.

“The dead man tells tales of simmering flesh juices!” Krieg informed him.

So even Krieg agreed with his self-assessment. Great.

+++

The sun hesitated at the edge of the horizon, bleeding streaks of orange into the sky, and Salvador sat alone outside with his back against the wall and his head in his hands. He squeezed his eyes shut and the afternoon replayed itself in crystal clear technicolor behind his eyelids.

A fight – blood and static and screams and chaos. His blood, pumping. Adrenaline singing.

He was braced on a piece of debris, guns kicking rhythmically in either hand, lost in the thrill of the battle, in the utter joy that came with tearing apart something trying to murder him with his bare hands. Well, his bare hands and two wildly impressive submachine guns, of course.

But then, Axton had gone done something so breathlessly stupid and dangerous that Salvador thought he might have been impressed if it hadn’t scared the ever-loving shit out of him, and Salvador had turned his head just in time to see his friend take what he’d thought was a bullet to the brain and go down hard like a sack of bricks.

Sitting in the shade now as his teammates chattered quietly inside the next room, Salvador felt his heartbeat speed up to a hum. He bit down hard on his lip until he tasted blood, relishing the bright spot of pain and squeezing his eyes even tighter.

He’d thought Axton was gone in that moment and it had felt to Salvador like every drop of blood under his skin had frozen solid. Panic had clenched his throat tight, strangling his breath, even as he’d yelled for Maya, for her to go do something, Axton was down, get his dumb ass outta there, quick—

Salvador shook his head hard, trying to dislodge the memory.

They’d gathered around him as the dust settled, a tiny hunched group covered in blood and shaking with spent adrenaline, suddenly faced with the looming possibility of having to move forward without their heart.

Because that was Axton – the heart and soul of their little group. If Gaige was their youth and Maya their confidence and Zer0 their rationale and Krieg their impulsivity, then Axton was undoubtedly their heart.

And nothing in Salvador’s experience lived very long after he’d torn out its heart.

Salvador sucked in a quick, deep breath.

Axton had jolted upright, gasping for air, and his bright blue eyes had opened again and Salvador had gone boneless with relief, wobbling a bit before sinking down hard into the desert sand, landing on his ass.

He’d stared at Axton, drinking him in, but when Axton had looked over he’d jerked his gaze away because he knew.

He knew that the strength of his churning feelings for the man must have been written all over his face. And he couldn’t bear to let Axton see them.

“ _Mierda_ ,” Salvador whispered into his hands, sucking in a long breath through his nose and dragging his hands roughly down his face.

If his _abuela_ could see him now. She’d be laughing her ass off at him, calling him every name in the book even as she pinched his cheeks.

“Love is for idiots,” he’d told her once, tucking into dinner and she’d whacked his knuckles with her serving spoon.

“You only say that because you’ve never felt it, _mijo_. You come back here when you meet your soulmate and then we see who’s the idiot, no? Now eat.”

“Well, there you go, _abuela_ ,” Salvador muttered at the dirt. “It’s me. Happy now? Your grandson’s the biggest fucking idiot on Pandora.”

Zer0 poked his head around the corner, mask blank, and Salvador looked up.

“Are you coming in? / There is food, and Gaige wants to / play monopoly.”

“Fine,” Salvador grunted, standing up and knocking the dust off the seat of his pants. “But I get to be the top hat.”

“A worthy choice. Though / certainly not as good as / the pup Skag figure.”

Zer0 ducked back inside and Salvador took just one more long second to breathe deeply, centering himself. Then he hunched his shoulders, shoved his hands in his pockets, and trudged inside to join the others.


End file.
